Biblical reflections and resources for thoughtful worshipers and worship leaders
How do you keep your worship services fresh after 5, 10 or 15 years in the same church? What do you think about when you lead a congregation filled with world class musicians? I was wondering some of these questions and so I reached out to my friend, David Hampton, to get his insights on these …
[Read more...] about Keeping Worship Fresh: Insights from Worship Director, David Hampton
With Thanksgiving behind and Christmas ahead, many churches will enter the Advent season this Sunday. If you're like me (raised more generally evangelical), the richness of Advent is often an after thought. I know for many churches this is the time of year we play Christmas songs and light Advent …
[Read more...] about Celebrating Advent: 4 Songs and Resources to Aid in Your Worship
Football, turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Add in family, friends and some fall colors and you have Thanksgiving, right? I don't think that's what the pilgrims were thinking. The food and celebration overflowed from a place of gratefulness they had survived a very harsh first year in the …
Do you know how to worship God? Sounds like a silly question, especially on a site about worship for worship leaders and serious worshippers. But this is a vital question, "Do you really know how to worship?" Sixty years ago A.W. Tozer lamented that Christians had more resources for knowing …
[Read more...] about God’s Call to Worship: 5 Ways Psalm 95 Shows Us How to Worship
Do you wonder why some songs become instantly popular in your church and across the country, while others fall flat? If you're a worship leader, do you have a systematic way for evaluating new songs or do you just look at the latest CCLI top 25 to find song ideas? Thoughts about CCLI I think the …
How do you handle life's major challenges? Where do you turn for help when your enemies overwhelm you? Fear can be a major obstacle to our worship. I've been reading about the Christians who were slaughtered under Nero's tyrannical reign. They didn't fear for their lives, but placed their trust in …
[Read more...] about Obstacles to Worship: Facing Down Life’s Giants
When you're planning a worship service do you wait for your preaching pastor to tell you what the Scripture says? Do you lean on the commentaries exclusively? I don't intend to undermine the authority of your senior pastor or devalue the expertise of the commentators. Instead, I join the Reformers …
[Read more...] about Planning for Worship (part 2): 9 Questions to Help Plan a Worship Service
What does your Sunday look like? Do you enter a new week invigorated or drained; renewed or discouraged? I was recently talking to a pastor friend about the way sports mania has invaded Sunday mornings for kids and family. I've seen numerous families have to make tough decisions about the …
[Read more...] about Preparing for Worship (part 4): 3 Things All Worshipers Can Learn from Children
Do you have a consistent model for planning worship services? Or, do you just create a setlist based on what's popular on the radio, on CCLI or what other churches in town are playing? I'd like to share a model for worship planning I have been using for almost a decade. Some background One of my …
